AXIS INFORMATION AND ANALYSIS: “ISRAELI MP ASSISTED IRAN ON THE CAUCASUS”
By Sami Rozen
Today, Azerbaijan
May 31 2006
Deputy Head of the Israeli Government, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Tsipi Livni was going to visit Azerbaijan in the near future, but all
of a sudden this week the preparations for her visit were terminated.
This was announced by a well-informed diplomatic sources in Tel Aviv.
Same sources said that a few weeks earlier Mark Sofer, Deputy Director
General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, at first orally, and
then in a written form, charged the Israeli ambassador to Baku Arthur
Lenk with the preparation of Livni’s visit. Lenk heads the embassy in
Azerbaijan for less than a year, and a successful putting into effect
of such an important event could noticeably raise his authority in the
opinion of local officials and his Israeli colleagues. Especially with
regard of the fact that since 1998, when the head of the government
of that time, Benjamin Netanyahu, paid a visit to Baku, none of the
Israeli prime-ministers or ministers did come any more to the capital
of Azerbaijan. However, by the end of the month an instruction to stop
preparations for Livni’s arrival unexpectedly came to the embassy
from the central apparatus of the foreign policy department. It was
marked in the received notice that the visit is put off indefinitely,
not specifying the reasons for such decision. Same diplomatic sources
claim that the change of plans of the Foreign Ministry Head was
dictated by ballyhoo caused by the trip to Azerbaijan of the member of
the Israeli Knesset, Yosef Shagal, representing the Yisrael Beytenu
(Israel Our Home) political party. Before his repatriation to Israel
in 1990, Shagal (Shchegolev by his real name), lived in Azerbaijan,
and that’s why, following his election this March as a member of
the Knesset he made his first visit abroad to this very country. He
paid a visit to Baku on May 15-16, together with another Israeli
member of parliament, and the representatives of Euro-Asian Jewish
Congress. Statements made by Shagal at his meetings with journalists,
have echoed not only in Azerbaijan, but have also drawn the attention
of Armenian and Iranian establishment. According to some Israeli
diplomats, this visit caused damage to the development of normal
relationship of the Jewish state with all countries of the South
Caucasus. Moreover, Shagal’s public statements are being used now by
the Iranian officials to strengthen the regional positions of Tehran
that contradict to the American interests.
At a press conference on May 15, the representative of the Israel Our
Home party declared: “Israel supports a fair position of Azerbaijan
in the Upper Karabakh conflict”. Next day, in the interview to the
online Day.Az edition he promised support of the Israeli parliament
to achieve cancellation of the 907-th amendment of the US Congress,
forbidding the American government to render aid to Azerbaijan,
adopted in 1992 in connection with the conflict in Karabakh.
Shagal spoke as though on behalf of all Israel and the Knesset
in particular, and his words were interpreted by many Azerbaijan
and Armenian journalists as the official position of the Jewish
state. It was promoted by the circumstance that the majority of the
South-Caucasian journalists do not particularly understand the twists
and turns of the Israeli domestic policy. They did not go deep in
such nuances as Shagal’s absence of any political experience (that
he himself recognizes) or his party’s opposition status. For them
it was only the essence of his statements that mattered. Actually,
official Israel traditionally takes an emphatically neutral position
in the issue of the Karabakh conflict. In parallel, the Ministry of
Foreign Affairs of this country pays a great value to the development
of normal relationships both with Azerbaijan, and with Armenia.
Therefore, according to the above mentioned sources, Shagal’s
statements have caused a perceptible damage to the development of
dialogue between Tel Aviv and Yerevan.
Moreover, their wide publicity promoted strengthening of the
pro-Iranian attitudes in Armenia, the growth of which has been recently
marked on the background of a price increase for the Russian gas (April
2006) and the rapproachement between Moscow and Ankara (2004-2005). Now
the Iranian officials got an opportunity to claim at meetings with the
Armenian representatives that the recent visits of the President of
Azerbaijan to the United States and of the head of the Israeli Foreign
Ministry to Turkey, as well as the performances of the Israeli member
of parliament in Baku and disturbances in Southern Azerbaijan are all
links of the same chain. According to Teheran’s allegation, all these
events have been testifying Washington’s attempts to realize its old
plans regarding the creation of a strategic alliance including the
United States, Israel, Turkey and Azerbaijan, and directed against
Iran and Armenia. Last months the leadership of the Islamic Republic
has been aiming at strengthening its relations with Armenia to exclude
the possibility of its cooperation with the United States in case of
an American-Iranian military conflict.
Not incidentally, the first foreign trip of the new Foreign Minister of
Iran Manucher Mottaki was to Yerevan (February 2006). And it was there,
when he had declared a real opportunity of participation of Armenia in
the project of transportation of the Iranian gas to Europe. In turn,
Washington has been making efforts to neutralize Tehran’s activity on
the Armenian direction. Against this background it becomes obvious,
that the declarations of the Israeli member of parliament in Baku
have served just to the interests of Iran.
While in Baku, in dialogue with the journalists Yosef Shagal
repeatedly raised a question of opening of the Azerbaijani embassy
in Tel Aviv. Israeli diplomats are engaged in the solution of this
problem from the very moment of establishment of mutual relations
in 1992. Till now their efforts have brought no result because of
Baku’s fears to aggravate its complicated relations with Tehran, and
also to lose political and economic support of the Arab countries,
in particular, of the Persian Gulf monarchies.
At last, during the April visit of the president Ilham Aliev to
Washington, with active assistance of the American administration,
it was possible to achieve progress in the given issue. The president
of Azerbaijan gave his basic consent to opening of the diplomatic
mission already in the near future. Now the Israeli diplomats are
afraid that Shagal’s attempt to show his own role in the solution of
this issue has drawn an excessive attention to this theme not only
in Azerbaijan, but also in the Muslim world as a whole.
In fact, it is one thing when those are the representatives of
the local Jewish community who express their opinion on the matter
(that was noted recently), and absolutely different thing when similar
statements are made by a member if the Israeli parliament, especially,
speaking on the behalf of the official leadership of the country. In
consequence, the opening of the Azerbaijani embassy in Tel Aviv might
be now postponed indefinitely. Moreover, at the meetings with the
officials in Baku Yosef Shagal put forward various offers concerning
bilateral cooperation in the oil business.
According to the diplomatic sources, the statements of the member
of parliament on the issue have been based mostly on publications
in the Internet. He, naturally, had no authority to discuss such
matters with the officials of Azerbaijan. Particularly because the
party represented by Shagal, is in opposition and has no relation to
formation of the country’s official policy, energy policy included.
Diplomats say that Shagal has simply mislead his interlocutors, and
this could only harm the further development of mutual cooperation…
Our sources mark that, at the best, Yosef Shagal actually represents
his own party. Though its leader Avigdor Liberman, the former head of
the prime minister’s office and former Minister of Infrastructures and
Transports, has been known as a person tempted in the big politics. He
played one of the key roles in development of relations of Israel
practically with all the CIS countries, and never allowed himself to
make such unequivocal statements in favor of one of the concflicting
sides in the post-Soviet space. In this connection the representatives
of the Israeli Foreign Ministry believe that Liberman had only
general information on Shagal’s trip. The same sources consider that
in a much greater extent, declarations of the Israeli MP in Baku
were coordinated with the leadership of Euro-Asian Jewish Congress,
rather than with Israel Our Home party. The mentioned organization
pursues its own interests, quite often depending on realtionships of
its leaders-sponsors with the regional political elites, in Central
Asia and the South Caucasus in particular. And those interests not
always coincide with the interests of Israel.
That fact eloquently testifies to it, that for all years of rule
of Ariel Sharon (2001-2005), Alexander Mashkevich, the head of the
Congress, with great efforts managed to meet him only a few times,
and that, as a rule, for a few minutes, just for a joint photo
session. Wherewith he had to achieve in every possible way the
favor of the nominal chief Ashkenazi Rabbi of Israel Yona Metzger,
to demonstrante at least somehow his “close relationship” with the
Israeli establishment. Against this background, it is not surprising
that after the trip of Yosef Shagal, the Israeli Minister of Foreign
Affairs had to cancel her visit to Baku. Arrival of Tsipi Livni to
Azerbaijan would have legitimized the MP’s declarations. In this
case Yerevan would have received weighty acknowledgement of the fears
concerning the Israeli support of Baku in the Karabakh conflict. And
it would become even more complex for Americans to keep Armenians
from further rapproachement with Iran.
President of Azerbajan Ilham Aliev himself is hardly interested to
advertise so obviously the activization of contacts with the Israelis,
which would inevitably be reflected in the relations with the largest
Muslim states. In such simple a way the “Russian” member of the
parliament managed to sensibly affect the course of the big-time
politics. The only thing is that his “success” has hardly gone on
advantage both of Israel and of the countries of the South Caucasus.
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